SBminisguy:
I too read D-Day Through German Eyes, both Book One and Two.
I was a fan of the books. I like first hand accounts, and seeing any battle from both sides.
But … I am afraid that these books have been rather widely discredited.
If you watch the YouTube video linked to in the OP, you'll notice at 9:55 how the screen shows both of the Eckhertz books, yet the narration mentions only books by other authors. I think this is an indirect indication that the Armchair Historian changed his mind about endorsing these books at some point in the production or editing of the video.
Looking to the discussion of this particular issue (the credibility of these books by this author) on the Reddit Ask A Historian forum ( link ), I find:
Holger Eckhertz … claims that his grandfather Dieter Eckhertz collected interviews with D-Day veterans in 1954 and that during the war, the grandfather had been a journalist for the Wehrmacht newspapers "Signal" and "Die Wehrmacht". Signal, unsurprisingly enough, is also held at the German National Library and while the full-text is only available in Leipzig, you can look for individual authors and there "Dieter Eckhertz" or just "Eckhertz" produces no hits. Similarly, the German Bundesarchiv search engine (the Bundesarchiv holds the issues of "Die Wehrmacht") also produces no hits on Dieter Eckhertz or in fact anyone named Eckhertz.And a journalist in 1954 doing these interviews that allegedly fill the book deciding not to publish them? That is also highly unusual. 1954 was in the thick of Wehrmacht glorification in West Germany. To claim not to be able to publish them or not to find someone willing to publish such interviews back then is incredibly unlikely given the historical context of West Germany at the time.
I guess final clarity could be achieved by a WASt request but seeing as that takes 4 to 6 weeks and costs money, I am foregoing that for now and say that the veracity of these books is extremely doubtful seeing as seeing as to how there neither seems to be … a German journalist named "Eckhertz" fitting the criteria (there also is nobody listed under the name Eckhertz in the German telephonebook, just saying).
And finally, there is Sprech Media itself. From what I can tell, they do not have a webpage, they do not have anyone listing them as employers on LinkedIn or similar sites, or any physical address or other listing other than Amazon that I could find. This is unusual and very suspect for a couple of reasons:
… how did they secure the rights to these interviews that Eckhertz allegedly made? If Eckhertz had an agreement with the veterans it usually only extends to one specific media product, not the wholesale rights to the interview in perpetuity. A company that according to the bibliographical information on most of their books is either translator or author … but is nonetheless able to do the research to find these rather amazing pieces of the historical record as well as secure the rights to their publication is, in my eyes, incredibly suspect.
… one reviewer on Amazon aptly points out that none of these books mentions the specific units the people from whom these recollections allegedly come is mentioned – a further sign that this is bogus.
All in all, without having ever read of these, a basic source critique reveals that Sprech Media and their publications are to a very high degree of likelyhood, frauds who scam their readers out of their money with made up books that glorify the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS.
This is not the only example of active and explicit skepticism about these books. Just take a look at the Amazon reviews -- you will see a quick turn from admiration to interesting books to doubts to eventual assaults on the credibility of the books, the author and the publisher.
I don't really have a dog in the fight -- I am more of a spectator than an advocate on either side of the matter. But I'm afraid that, for now at least, I have to consider these as historical frauds, fiction presenting itself as non-fiction. May be wrong. I was perfectly happy believing they were first-hand accounts, but the evidence is pretty compelling, and continues to mount.
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
paints 
